Oh, how I love Spring… The end of snow and the beginning of gentler breezes and time outside in the garden. Spring is my time to be starting hundreds of tiny little plants in cups to eventually be placed in my 9 beautiful raised garden beds.

Oh but first let’s talk about the dreaded SPRING CLEANING! I don’t know to many people who get excited about the process of pulling their whole house apart to reach into corners that seldom get seen by anyone and Windex, Pledge, or vacuum them within an inch of their lives. After all that work you put it all back just the way it was, take a deep breath and forget about the process until next year. It feels great for about 10 minutes.

UGH…… Not fun

Magazines love to talk about all the NEW AND BETTER ways to get the job done. They try to make it sound like something wonderful and amazing and not like a whole lot of extra work.

See all the mess on the counter in the background…. SPRING CLEANING!

I know we all have a million thing we would rather be doing than this but I have come to realize that it is necessary to renew and refresh our homes and the things that we each have deemed important enough to keep in our lives. I just took a

I know we all have a million thing we would rather be doing than this but I have come to realize that it is necessary to renew and refresh our homes and the things that we each have deemed important enough to keep in our lives. I just took a peek at Pinterest to see what Pinterest users had to say about Spring cleaning and was not surprised to see that everyone has a special take on this giant project. Some of the titles that caught my eye were:

Pre-Spring Cleaning (Clearing Away The Winter Mess) – This is a thing????

This year I have to an extra special, super duper cleaning to end all super duper cleanings because we will be putting our house on the market this May/June. I’m hoping for May but the master bathroom is completely torn out at the moment and we have around 75 other projects to attend to prior to sale.Well

Well anyway, I have started my large list this past weekend and will keep at it for the next 6 weeks or so.

Please let me know how you handle the giant specter of spring cleaning! I would really love to hear from you!

I have spent the last week trying to get up early and “dominate my day”. I did pretty well getting up early and getting my butt going on my day for the first week and theeeeen the weekend hit and my new program was thrown aside.

I want to get up and be all like “yeah I am ready to conquer the world” but in reality I am more like “hmm lets start this thing tomorrow”. Lazy is a good word to describe me first thing in the morning. I like sleep, but I seem to like it to much. In reality I don’t usually get seven or eight hours, I have trouble sleeping at night but NO problem sleeping most of the morning. One of my problems is that I am always on a screen. I am either watching TV, using my computer, playing games on my phone or reading on my Ipad. Most of the time I am doing two of these things at the same time. By the time I climb in bed and read a book on my tablet for a while my brain is in hyper-drive and refuses to shut down for sleep time. I looked this up on WEBMD and amongst all the brilliant info on the subject this simple explanation stood out.

“One of the most simple but important reasons technology affects our sleep is cognitive stimulation,” says Mark Rosekind, PhD, former director of the Fatigue Countermeasures Program at the NASA Ames Research Center and president and chief scientist at the scientific consulting firm Alertness Solutions.

Our brain needs to be slowed down before bedtime with a cup of sleepytime tea and soothing music and not given Facebook and Plants vs Zombies to get us more riled up before the lights go out.

The solution is to put away all technology an hour before I go to bed. If I must read before I sleep I need to break out the real thing a “book” that has pages made of paper. This way I can ease myself into sleep mode. One of the reasons I want to get better sleep is that I have read some studies that correlate insomnia with people who have dementia. My mother was an insomniac and she is in later stage dementia. This scares the pants off of me, I want to fix this ASAP, the last thing I want to do is to help dementia get a foot in the door with me! (I know it doesn’t work like that) but still I want to feel in control of my own brain health.

Soooo all of this was to say that I started reading a book called (The 5AM Miracle, Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast) by Jeff Sanders. I found the book to be very thought provoking and a really clean way to look at the topic. I still need to go back and complete the action plans to really get a good grasp of my runaway life/schedule. Below is one of the chapter ending Quick reviews from the book (I hope this is not breaking a law or rule of blogging)

Why getting up early is so awesome

You will have the precious time you need to effectively plan your day.

Early mornings are ideal for meditation, prayer, yoga, or just a little quiet time.

Early risers tend to exercise more, eat healthier, and have a sexier body. What’s not to like? (I’m hearing the sounds of an AMEN coming to my lips!)

Getting more done is nearly a guarantee when you wake up prepared to dominate your day.

With a consistent 5 a.m. miracle in place, you are more likely to achieve your lifes grandest goal.

Many high achievers wake up early and you are about to join them. (Hmmm. I hope so)From “The 5am Miracle” by Jeff Sanders Page 27

I’m going to try this again! I will set my alarm for 5:30 to start and get my butt out of bed, do my Bible reading and then enter my very unused exercise room. I WILL dominate my day and get some stuff done! I have some pretty big goals that I just need to put the sweat equity into and get it done!

In my last Dementia post I looked at some of the medical info on the disease(Picks Disease) my mother has so now I will go back to our personal journey.

The other day I received the publishers clearing house (You Could Be A Winner) envelope in the mail and this annoying piece of mail got me thinking about a “Mom event” that had everything to do with her dementia.

My mom called me one evening all excited about something. She would not tell me what it was other than she was about to make me very happy. I was to meet her for breakfast the next day to go with her to a meeting so when I get to the breakfast place and proceed to get some information from her. She is grinning from ear to ear as she tells me she “WON” publishers clearing house. I of corse am very excited for her and for my little family because she now wants to give us lots of money too. After some more talking I find out she found out she had won from a phone call in which she was instructed to send money for the “taxes” on the winnings, oh and that she had already met one of these gentlemen who had called her at a ATM to give them some money. She was just unbelievably excited to have me with her when she gave them the rest of the money! I was floored! Scared! and incredibly angry. I just knew that this was not true!

While she was telling more and more of this scary tale I looked into how the publishers clearing house presented winnings and if they ever charged anyone money for the taxes. I even called and talked to them while we were having breakfast. My mom was so mad at me for not believing her and for thinking she was being taken advantage of but, By now I knew she was being lied to and that she had no idea what was happening to her, I asked her if I could call these people for myself and ask them a few questions. She did not want me making the call so she dialed their number while we sat in her car in the restaurants parking lot. They started telling her to not listen to me and that she needed to leave me behind when she came to meet them. I took the phone from her and they actually argued with me and told me some complete lies about how this was a legitimate prize that my mother had won and that I was so awful for messing this up for my mother. I tried to get them to meet us at the police station or the lawyers office to show me that it is a real prize. It was almost comical how it played out. They of course refused to meet us anywhere but at their (hotel office). I left them thinking that we would be there within the hour after we picked up the money. I NEVER intended to go anywhere near these people. I called my husband for the 10th time during this whole mess and he suggested playing along and getting my mother to the bank to ask them some questions and hopefully get a police officer to join us at the bank if necessary.

We went to the bank because mom intended to get more money to give them and I intended to have someone talk some sense into her. The bank manager came out and talked to us and finally got through to my mother by explaining how this con works and that these people pray on older people who have just lost a loved one. I got her into her car and pointed to home saying that we would do more research and then make a decision. She is one stubborn woman! She was so mad at me because I had somehow ruined everything for her, like because I got involved it became a crime and not because she was gullible and an easy mark for these men.

Once we got home I called the police in my moms town and one of the state troopers came to the house to take our report. It was not until then that my mom started to understand that she had been conned and that she had put herself into a very dangerous situation. What is really funny is that the guy called my mom again while the trooper was with us and proceeded to argue with the trooper for some time even threatening the trooper saying that he was going to lodge a complaint against him. The trooper and I were taking turns on the phone basically telling these guys off and laughing at their stupidity!

I ended up having to block their number on all of my mom’s phones so they could not call her again and then proceeded to spend the night with her to make sure no one showed up at her door. Thank goodness I carry a gun at all times. I was scared that night and don’t think I slept at all. To think that my mom drove into town the night before and met one of these criminals and gave them about 600.00 dollars and would have given them much much more.

Early stages of dementia does more than steal a persons memory, it steals their commonsense. They no longer have the ability to see the dark scary dangerous forrest for the pretty trees. I had never been so scared and concerned for her safety before in my life. My mother who would never go anywhere strange or different without a friend or family had now started to make risky decisions. I now know poor reasoning skills are just one of the many early symptoms of dementia….

Traditions are what keep families together, grounded, and in the end create the warm fuzzy memories that we carry into our adult lives. I will be writing a more elaborate post on family traditions for Christmas eve but I thought I would share this one family tradition that we have created together. Every year we get an ornament that has our names and the year written on it. Many of these ornaments have come from our yearly trip to the Yankee Candle store in MA. Its not an elaborate tradition but its fun to see them on the tree every year and Hannah holds them up as she is putting them on the tree especially mentioning the one that we got in NY city that both her name and mine are a little smudge but of course daddy’s is perfect! Its not the expense or fan fare that makes something important or memorable, its the heart of it, the family building part of it that will make its meaning last longer than Joel and I will be around to continue it!

2008 – Wedding present from my Grandmother Claire Lavallee

2009 – We didn’t even get this one written on…. Novices

2010 – Our tradition not set yet…. Just our last name.

2011 – Here we go…. first of many with our names.

2012 – Three frogs.

2013 – I love this one!

2014 – Our trip to NY was in Dec. of 2014 so we bought this one to remember the trip… This is the one with smudged names.

2015 – We got this one because we can’t wait to have our own beehives! lol

I am starting this series as way for me to talk about how God is impacting my life at this moment. It might be through Bible Study, a christian magazine article, Facebook post, a Christian meme, or a book I’m reading. Or it may be a conversation I’ve had with someone, whatever that something is it has mad me think about life and God. It will be something I need to share because I think others can benefit from it and maybe grow in their own walk.

I’m currently reading a book called Whats it like to be married to me? by Linda Dillow. The title sounded kind of scary to me because I know me and it can’t be easy putting up with me in general. I think we humans are a pretty selfish group of people. We tend to look at how hard it is to be married to our husbands or wives without really thinking about it as this author proposes. What about us? How are we to be married to? Does my husband think YAY I’m going home to the perfect woman who I want to spend all my time with? I doubt it! I bet a lot of time he is just as happy to go to work as they/he are/is to come home to us/me.

In the third chapter she talks about a question that was posed to many men… She asks what is the one thing you would like to have in a wife? OK this does not seem so bad… what are they going to say “a good cook” “sex” hmmmm, a majority of the men said they want a wife who have a positive attitude toward life. They want to be married to someone who does not complain a great deal, someone who encourages them in life and is just plain pleasant to be around. I don’t think that is me! I know I can be a negative person about the everyday stuff at times. Not all the time but I know I was pretty convicted by the answer those men gave.

I know that when I am in a positive frame of mind my husband is also. If Im in a good mood my family has a much better chance of having a good day. I know this is very true on Sundays when we are always together from 8ish till about 3ish. If I’m complaining about everything from Hannah wearing the wrong clothing to how much I wish I could have slept in on this one Sunday, we are set to have a negative feeling day. If however I get up and complement what Hannah’s wearing and let the noisy goofing around happen without comment the day is much more positive. The old adage is unfortunately true; “If momma ain’t happy then ain’t nobody happy”. My husband hates that saying but we both know its true. Joel is very low key most of the time so even if he is in a bad mood everything goes smooth for the most part.

So whats a girl to do? This girl is going to make an effort to change her attitude. I have started praying about my complaint spirit and how I need his help to become the wife that Joel needs me to be.

I am going to take a little detour in my Mom’s(Sally’s) story and talk about the disease itself. Everything I will be talking about here I learned from doctors and the internet….

Mom At her Nursing Home

Picks Disease is much worse than it sounds and harder to get info about than most of the types of dementia. No one would ever pick this decease for themselves or their worst enemy. When I was just getting into this with my mother I really knew nothing about dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. I was not sure if one disease led into the other nor did I have any other real way to understand the disease. I really thought they were the same thing and I find most people really do not have a true understanding of what it is. After many visits with doctors and nursing home nurses I think I have a good grasp of what it all means.

First question – What is the difference between Alzheimer’s and Dementia?

Alzheimer’s is an actual disease and it is one of the causes of Dementia. Alzheimer’s is caused by a protein that develops tangles and plaques in the brain that cause the cells to no longer communicate with each other. In advanced cases the brain shrinks.

Dementia is not actually disease but a group of symptoms. These system cause a person to find it difficult to do many mental tasks like remembering things and clear reasoning skills. If a person was always a conservative person when dealing with finances you might notice they make some very opposite risk taking decisions. Early on my mom all of a sudden decided to get into some day trading and bought some Gold that was “held” overseas! SCAM! She was a financial person, she had her series 7 and she was also all about putting her money in SAFE investments. Her financial person even told me (later on) that mom was doing things that were not her norm. (Big symptom)

Second Question – How do you know there is something wrong with your Loved one?

It seams like the disease creeps up on you. If you live with someone full time you might not really notice for quite

a while. It might even be something that is noticed more by the friends of the person with dementia. The disease can start with forgetfulness, time management, and getting lost easily. My mom (Sally) was great at coping with things and still is in her limited capacity. She would cover forgetfulness with a joke, set an alarm to be on time and use her GPS even when it was her ride home from work. She was always super controlling/a perfectionist so even when she was falling apart not many would recognize it. It was her friends that noticed first, they noticed that she would lose words. She would be out for lunch and want to order french fries but could not come up with the right word. She knew it was the wrong word (fingers) but could not find the right one. At my Step Fathers funeral she read something she had written about him being a happy (camper) but she had written (cannibal). Unless we did not know Marvin very well he was not a cannibal! It was not until the depression of my Step Father dying kicked in did it become very apparent that mom was really not behaving normally.

Third Question – What is Pick’s Disease

I had so much trouble finding a good answer to this question. Its sciencey name is Frontotemporal Dementia. The following paragraph of information I am taking straight from a website called NIH National Institute of Neuralogical Disorders and Stroke: (Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) describes a clinical syndrome associated with shrinking of the frontal and temporal anterior lobes of the brain. Originally known as Pick’s disease, the name and classification of FTD has been a topic of discussion for over a century. The current designation of the syndrome groups together Pick’s disease, primary progressive aphasia, and semantic dementia as FTD. Some doctors propose adding corticobasal degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy to FTD and calling the group Pick Complex. These designations will continue to be debated. As it is defined today, the symptoms of FTD fall into two clinical patterns that involve either (1) changes in behavior, or (2) problems with language. The first type features behavior that can be either impulsive (disinhibited) or bored and listless (apathetic) and includes inappropriate social behavior; lack of social tact; lack of empathy; distractability; loss of insight into the behaviors of oneself and others; an increased interest in sex; changes in food preferences; agitation or, conversely, blunted emotions; neglect of personal hygiene; repetitive or compulsive behavior, and decreased energy and motivation. The second type primarily features symptoms of language disturbance, including difficulty making or understanding speech, often in conjunction with the behavioral type’s symptoms. Spatial skills and memory remain intact. There is a strong genetic component to the disease; FTD often runs in families.)

Wow… Scary stuff, especially the last line that states that is runs in families! I don’t know of anyone in my mothers family that has had dementia, I hope it does not start with us! Lets just say that I spend a great deal of time dwelling on this information. I think long and hard about every instance where I have forgotten a word or name of a show/movie/car etc…. I would bet that anyone who has a family member with any type of dementia has the same worries that I do. I worry most for my family… You know the WHAT IFS!

Fourth Question – Is there a cure or treatment?

Nope…. They say doctors are practicing medicine for a good reason, they don’t know what to do about dementia. Some things help slow things down and some things soften the symptoms but a cure? Nope! The progression of Pick’s disease is quicker than some types, especially when you keep in mind the fact that it hits much earlier than most types of dementia. a person with Pick’s disease generally has between 2 and 10 years. So if a person gets hit with this bus in their 50s they will most likely die in their 60s… Thats not very old at all, it seems younger and younger with each passing year! My mother is one of the youngest people in the nursing home she is in. She is 66 where as everyone else is 75 and older it seems.

Anyway I will get back to my mom’s story in Part 4! I felt it was important to define the disease before going on with our journey!

Right now I am trying my best to have my holiday attitude in place. (I love everything) is the attitude I am going for but being me that is not even a possibility! lol

So my 5 friday favorites are as follows.

A blog I read called CarrotsNCake.com ! Tina is a great writer, Mom, Wife, Cook and fitness enthusiast. I have been reading her blog for a few years and it is one of the first ones I go to when I log into my Bloglovin account. Today she posted on a soup she made that has kale in it. I have been avoiding kale like the plague for years. I even grew it in my garden this year, canned some and then gave most of it away. I can still say I have never cooked with it, that is until this coming week when I will make her soup.

A book I’m reading that is by another blogger I follow, Crystal Paine from Moneysavingmom.com. The book is titled Money Making Mom. She talks about women starting home based careers, like blogging or selling crafts. These are both ideas that I am very passionate about. I don’t want to ever have to walk into an office to work everyday, so that being said I love any book that can inspire me with ideas and direction. Just FYI I obviously have a blog started and am in process of perfecting a craft to sell so yay me!

My early Christmas present that I can’t wait to use. It is a Ninja 3 in 1 Cooking System. I just opened the box and just love it already! This glorified crock pot allows you to say…. Brown the meat for beaf stew and then cook it in the same pot. Less dishes make me very happy. I have always loved using a crockpot. I am not one of those people who got one when they got married and has it in it original box in the basement! I also love practical presents. I am probably one of the few people who asked for a dust buster for Christmas when I was in college.

PEPPERMINT…. I love peppermint everything! I can say the something about pumpkin in the fall but I think I love peppermint even more. As I am typing this I am eating my fifth or fifteenth Candy Cane Hershy kiss! LOVE THEM! Oh and don’t get me started on Starbucks Peppermint Mochas! I try to stay away but I get at least two per Christmas season… Sometime many more!

OHHHH… That moment when you think you are all done Christmas shopping and can just relax and spend about ten hours wrapping presents! I do kinda enjoy Christmas shopping, when I have a plan. I hate it when I have no idea what to get someone for Christmas or a birthday. Its awful until you realize that is why they made grift cards! Those things are my saving grace for certain people! I have two nieces and a nephew in Georgia, they are all little and cute and have everything they need so what do I get them??? Hmmm send the mom a gift card and then she gets to give them what they really want! I know it seems like I am shirking my duties but I am a bit more practical than most and think its better to get someone what they want than what I want them to have. Some of the time that is!

Well thats it…. Have a great Christmas and I hope you get everything you need for Christmas and a little bit of what you want!

So I want to start doing a monthly phone photo dump to show what really goes on in my life… lol Not much this past month, other than some birthdays and some Jamicures going on around here. I do see I need to include people in my pictures and not just the dogs! They are the only ones who don’t complain when I take pictures!

(Prepper) the term sounds funny like a cartoon character or something but it’s not. I guess my husband Joel and I are becoming mini preppers! We have the property in the woods to head to (once we build our house) we have a garden, we have a pantry filled with self-canned foods and store bought foods, we have some water purification preps, we have the ability to protect ourselves, and we have the “prepper foods”. My husband bought some last year and we have bought some more little by little.

Prepper food is food to have on hand in case of emergency when the stores will not be a viable option. The food is more shelf stable than most foods you buy at the store it is said to last about 20-25 years if stored correctly, and will more than likely have less calories per serving than we are used to because it is meant to help us survive a bad situation but not meant to help us thrive. Most of the food is freeze dried or dehydrated so it is easy to transport and usually just requires some warm water to make it meal ready.

Closeup of Travelers Stew

Sample of some of our foods

I have never tried any of these meals as of yet but that will change tonight. We will be cooking at least on of these meals for dinner so the three of us can see what we could be in for. We are letting our 13 year old choose our meal tonight so she can feel more connected to the whole prepper thing! Also we want her buy in because she is so picky about food that if she chooses it maybe she will have to like it! My only fear about the prepper foods is that they are not very high in protein, this is ok for lunch and dinner but the breakfast they provide are strictly carb, carbs, carbs. I can’t eat a carb filled breakfast in regular life without falling apart. (I am diabetic) If I eat carbs for breakfast I feel weak and sweaty in just a couple hours, its really awful. I have been know to have to leave church services to find a place to lay down while my husband finds me something to eat. I have been talking to the hubby about the need to supplement our stores with protein bars and such but the problem is that they do not last long. I wonder if I press and seal them if they would last a lot longer? More research to do!

Soooo wish us luck as we dive into our first trial run of eating or “prepper” foods. I just hope it doesn’t suck! loll

I love Cranberry sauce… I am the only one in my house who loves is but thats ok… I will eat it all!

Yummy Yummy Cranberry Sauce

I do A LOT of canning (for a beginner) This is my first year canning but it won’t be my last for sure. My husband who won’t eat half of what I canned was still really proud of our canning stockpile! He even took pictures and showed his friends, he even took pickles to the office for friends. I have over 400 cans of produce, meat, and beans canned and have plans to can more this winter!

There are many reasons to preserve your own food and here are a few of my reasons. We built 9 4×10 raised bed gardens this Spring so I better not waste anything. I know whats in my food, its organic, non GMO and does not create extra waste by throwing away/recycling them. We save money in the long run, yes it cost us much money to get started with canning between jar buying and pressure cooker buying and everything else we did lay out a bit of money. In the long run everything except the seals are reusable! I have just loved learning how to do it and its not that hard!

AND Cranberries. I bought some bags to make sauce for Thanksgiving and then we changed plans and did not have dinner in our home. SOOO because I was not going to throw them away and I will eat Cranberry sauce anytime of the year the canning equipment came out to play. I looked up a few different recipes and they all seemed the same.

It comes down to the following recipe:

Per 12oz Bag of Cranberries you will need

2 cups water

2 cups sugar

zest of 1/2 orange

1/4tsp of vanilla

Makes 2 pints or 4 – 1/2pints

Thats it! Boil the water and sugar for 5 minutes add cranberries cook at a low boil for 15 minutes stirring occasionally until all the berries burst. Add the vanilla and orange zest stir and then pour into prepared jars. wipe rim of jars and put the prepared seals on and screw on lids. Place in water canner and boil with cover on for 10 minutes. Place on rack or towel until cool and then move to storage.

First collect all of your canning equipment.

Pretty Cranberries!

I used 4 bags of Cranberries

Zesting oranges is a tedious task! lol

Zested 2 oranges for this recipe.

Cranberries are all popped so I added the zest and vanilla.

Prepared jars all ready to be filled!

Filled and cleaned jars.

Lids heated and ready for use.

Jars ready for the canner and then ready to be enjoyed for many meals to come!